NPR Digital Services Blog

Quick Pledge™ Certificate Install

If you are unable to open or decrypt your pledge emails or batch files, the security certificate may need to be reinstalled. This is often needed if you purchase a new computer or change email programs.

To Install or Reinstall Security Certificates:

• Contact us by filling out this form: http://digitalservices.npr.org/support.html
• We’ll be in touch with the proper files and walk you through the installation process. It’s simple and it doesn’t take long.
  

A sustaining membership program, in which memberships auto-renewing each year, is a great way to cut down on fundraising costs and provide a steady monthly income to your station.

With Quick Pledge, there are two ways you can collect sustaining memberships:

1. Set up a separate Sustaining Member form that lists out donation levels in monthly giving levels
2. Combine sustaining membership option with your one-time donations on a single form.

Option 1: Set up a separate Sustaining Member Form (example)

• On the Form Settings page, select ‘Sustaining Only‘ option from the form template pulldown menu.
• Customize pledge levels as monthly amounts.
• If you assign premiums to the form, note that while the premiums get entered into the system as Annual Pledge amounts, they will get automatically translated into monthly amounts on the Sustaining Member form. For example: $120 gift level premium will be displayed as:
  $120 gift on your default form.
  $10 gift on your Sustaining Membership form.

The fund drive season is upon us! As you are getting ready for your drives, please check the blog for tips and reminders about how to use Quick Pledge to its fullest.

ALSO: If you anticipate needing any help such as batch file revisions or training for new staff members, we ask that you give us 2 weeks notice to be able to accommodate all requests in our development schedule.

You can submit your request by emailing help@ds.npr.org

Please contact us with additional questions. Hope your drives go well!

After 12 years at PI and Digital Services, Suzanne Brendle has decided that it’s time, at this stage in her career, to try something new. She will be leaving us to explore new opportunities.

Suzanne is truly one of public media’s digital pioneers.  She has been with PI since its inception and has seen the organization through start up, an evolution of business models, PRI acquisition, NPR acquisition and its transformation into Digital Services.

She began as a program site producer and quickly transitioned into bigger roles. She launched our live streaming service and Composer Pro, and from the beginning has played a critical role in expanding PI’s product and business strategy.  Most recently she’s led the Client Services team, spearheading the effort to transition all of our existing station customers to the new Core Publisher platform

We are very excited to be part of DEInteractive Online Fundraising Cooperative starting this fall.

The cooperative is a joint venture between DEI, leading online fundraising consulting firm Donor Digital and NPRDigital Services, partnering with a select pilot group of NPR member stations. The goal of the cooperative is to reactivate lapsed donors and bring in more revenue to stations by developing and testing email appeals and donation forms, and testing the timing and frequency of email messages to improve retention and recapture of lapsed donors.

NPR Digital Services is providing the tools for this project:

• Quick Pledge for taking in online donations
• Pulse email marketing to send out the e-solicitations

We hope this project and testing around optimized appeals and donation forms will lead to results and best practices that will benefit everyone.  Stay tuned for more on this project as it gets on the way.

NPR DS will be exhibiting at the upcoming Public Radio Programming (PRPD) Conference in Baltimore, September 20-23. Our own Phil Johnson will be taking part in a session on Digital Media Metrics, led by Mike Reszler of APM, discussing some of the latest findings on streaming usage based on SoundExchange reporting data.

ONA
NPR DS will also be well represented at the Online News Association Conference right here in Boston, September 22-24. Let us know if you’re attending and in the area – we might host an event, official or unofficial. And you’re always welcome to stop by for a tour of our office.

If you’re attending either conference, and you spy one of us, please be sure to say hello!

Thanks for all your inquires and well wishes! Lucky for us, Hurricane Irene was milder than predicted here in the Boston area. The sun is shining today, and the office is open. No leaks or damage to the office. A few of us are still dealing with power outages, internet outages, fallen trees and the like at home.

A few calls may need shifted around, but for the most part, it’s business as usual today.  We hope you and our east coast stations survived the storm and are all safe and well.

While Dan Gurin has been working with us for a little while, he recently moved within NPR DS to become a Client Services Manager. Dan began working in public radio in 2000 and he hasn’t stopped since, touching virtually every area of the public radio space from production to content. After driving from Portland to help create Core Publisher, he’s put on his hard hat to build and support station sites with the Client Services department. When Dan isn’t growing the NPR digital network, he’s probably close to water or snow depending on the ambient temperature in New England.

I am thrilled that Sara Terpeny has joined us as the new Client Services Manager to help bring stations on-board to the Core Publisher platform.  No stranger to public media, Sara spent the past 11 years at PBS where, among other things, she played an integral role in rolling out the COVE online video platform, and the Merlin local/national content database to stations, as well as consulting with stations on web best practices and digital strategy.  Originally from New Hampshire, Sara holds a degree in English from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.  When she’s not rolling products out to public media stations, Sara can usually be found exploring wildlife reserves in south-eastern Massachusetts with her husband and daughter.

Rakiesha Chase, one of the newest additions to our Client Services Team, is a Drupal enthusiast, avid gamer and proud member of Boston’s social media community. She brings not only her experience in technical customer service to the team, but also her passions for online community coordination and project management. In the past, she has served at a community based television station, as well as at several nonprofits serving the under-resourced. You can find her online on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Foursquare, or whatever the newest online community is at the time.